Nigel Latta 2 - School Report: What's Going On (Episode Two)

It's very refreshing to see high quality investigative documentaries on our screens.

– Stuff reviewer Jimmy Ryan on this episode, 13 August 2014

Some of these parents will be working long hours at low-paid jobs, and they literally can't afford to give their kids breakfast. That just seems...wrong.

– Nigel Latta experiences breakfast club at Tamaki primary school Pt England School

When you do it it looks like dance. When I do it it looks like some sort of injury.

– Nigel Latta finds dance class at Pakuranga College challenging

If you look at some of those expensive schools, my nephew goes to one of those and to give you a hint, his lunch money each day is $35 for lunch...it's a very expensive school and when you look up on the MySchool website his school compared to schools like his, it's just below average. But, the parents fundamentally believe that because of the affluence of the school he's getting a much better education than if he'd gone to the local public high school, there's no evidence for that whatsoever...

– Professor John Hattie on the common perception that expensive means better

Bloody hell! There's technology everywhere — even in phys ed!

– Nigel Latta is amazed that physical education students need their iPad device in class

I don't understand why teachers always have to know the answer— and showing them that I don't know the answer actually is more freeing for them, and they come up with better stuff.

– Pakuranga College Head of English Vanessa Alexander, near the end of this episode

They cared passionately that you learnt what they valued; they saw something in you you didn't see in yourself. You learned more than you thought you could. Those are the passionate kind of teachers. Now New Zealand's lucky — we have a lot of those...

– Education expert John Hattie on the number of quality teachers in the New Zealand school system

We had to change because School Certificate labelled half our kids failures. The old days of School Certificate you got 49 — was that so much worse than 51? Really there's no difference. [Back then] we didn't want too many people staying at school for too long. We wanted a whole pile of people to leave and go and get apprenticeships or labouring jobs, and it was a very crude, but very effective sifting mechanism. NCEA changed that mould.

– Pakuranga College Principal Michael Williams is asked why New Zealand dumped School Certificate for the NCEA qualification system

A lot of parents get anxious that computer gadgets and group work come at the expense of 'real learning'.

– Nigel Latta tackles another parental perception about modern school learning strategies

I certainly understand the tension between people of my generation and this stuff, because at first glance it seems looser. But when you see kids applying it, it really makes sense. What you need in life is a whole bunch of strategies. If you come across a problem, and you've only got one way to solve it, and it doesn't work, you're stuffed.

– Nigel Latta on the new approach to teaching maths in primary schools

New Zealand has what I believe is a programme that can accommodate the very brightest students, and those of very modest potential, thereby avoiding any suggestion of a ‘two-tiered' system. However hard schools try to suggest other systems merely offer ‘alternatives', the inference is they are superior. They are not.

– Christ's College principal Simon Leese on the perception that the Cambridge Exam system is 'better' than NCEA, The Sunday Star-Times, 12 August 2013

If I was able to do one thing in my 11 years in New Zealand, it would have been to get rid of the deciles. I think it's absolutely criminal that we have it, and parents use it a a proxy for quality. It's got no relationship to quality in terms of the progress that teachers add in schools — none ... Some of our best schools in New Zealand are decile one schools.

– Education expert John Hattie on the decile system in New Zealand schools

...I think one of the beauties about NCEA is it says quite up front, there are lots of ways of being excellent.

– Education expert John Hattie, near the end of this episode

Latta concluded that he was sold on the new ways young New Zealanders are being educated. He did not believe that a decile rating would impact the quality of education a child receives, and that NCEA is a system that is working very well, and providing a better deal for students. While his hour on the outlook of the economy and equality last week painted a worrying picture, it was pleasing to see a subject Latta believes we should be upbeat, positive, and proud about.

– Stuff reviewer Jimmy Ryan on this episode, 13 August 2014

It always surprises me that we have this belief in New Zealand that we have a crisis. There's a hundred and something countries behind us. Pretty impressive.

– Education expert John Hattie, at the end of this episode

I think a lot of people choose schools based on decile ranking because they think a higher decile school's going to be a better school That was a lovely classroom; I looked in that classroom and I'd be happy for any of my kids to be in that classroom. I wish I'd been in that classroom when I'd been a kid.

– Nigel Latta, after joining an English and Literacy class at low-decile primary school Pt England School